Reamer ‘die-in’ because black lives matter

On Thursday, Feb. 5, 2014, during common lunch a group of students held a “die-in” demonstration to commemorate the #BlackLivesMatter campaign.

The demonstration was organized to stand in solidarity with the communities that have been and continue to be affected by a faulty system.

Our demands are, but not limited to, the following:

1. Have Union recognize this issue as both relevant and pressing.

2. To bring awareness to the Union community, and begin conversations about the issues affecting certain group

3. Put an end to the racial profiling enacted by Campus Safety.

Some people believe that awareness on this topic is not needed on Union’s campus, but as we ourselves witnessed on social media outlets, such as Yik Yak, that is absolutely not the case.

Many people also took offense to this campaign as a rebuttal that black lives are not the only ones that matter, but all lives.

We agree with this point 100 percent.

To acknowledge that black lives matter does not mean that all lives matter, it means that we need to realize that the lives of an entire group of people have been marginalized by both the media and the justice system alike.

Black lives have been, and continue to be seen as inferior, even on this campus, and that is what we want to make Union students aware of.

Another point that we would like to address is that this demonstration was not a direct response to Ferguson.

In reality, black lives are being taken each and every day by people of all races, including blacks.

To say that this issue is black and white would be to overly simplify what is a very complicated topic.

In order for everyone to feel comfortable at Union, these conversations need to happen.

While some may say that this demonstration wasn’t successful in terms of numbers, we would stand to completely disagree.

Not only were there many students watching, but also faculty members both watched and participated.

Along with the discussions that it started, it’s safe to say that we accomplished what we set out to do: Start the conversation and get people talking.